Welcome to our first topic in the HTML5 tutorial series. The purpose of this topic is to introduce you to HTML and how it can help you build your first website. I will be taking you from a complete beginner to a professional HTML web designer.

Years ago, websites used to be very plain (no interactivity). They just had pages that would display only text and pictures. But in recent times, websites have become much more interactive, I'm talking about playing games online, watching videos, making video calls, streaming music, e.t.c.

What is HTML?

HTML simply means Hypertext Markup Language. Although it is rare for anyone to ask you what HTML stands for, but it is advisable to have this in memory just in case.

HTML can be thought of as the building blocks of a web page. For the following terminologies, think of a website as a house.

HTML is the set of concrete blocks that help in the layout and structuring of the house. It defines the shape and skeletal base of the house.CSS is the plastering and painting. It is what makes the website look pleasing to the eye.The Web Pages are the different rooms you can visit in the house.Javascript represents structural enhancements like elevators, ceiling fans, windows, e.t.c PHP (or any server-side language) is the electricity, wiring and piping that adds functionality to the house.MySQL (or any Database Management System) represents water tanks, sewer pits (soak away), or even cupboards where things are stored.Members or Users are the people who live in the house (they are people who are registered and/or signed in to the website).Guests or Visitors are people who do not live in the house but are only there for a short period of time (e.g. people who read posts but aren't registered on the website).Administrators or Admins are the landlords of the house. They own and control the activities of people living in the house.

I will make a tutorial series each for CSS, Javascript, PHP, and MySQL, so there's no need to understand them now. Right now, our main goal is to design a simple website.

How Do I Start Writing HTML Code?

To start writing HTML code, you will need two things.

A text editor

A web browser

An example of a text editor is the "Notepad" on your Windows computer, but writing code with notepad will be difficult to read and would become frustrating after a while. There are text editors built for writing code. An example is Notepad++ (Notepad plus plus). It's free and easy to use, but only available for Windows. If you have a Mac, you might want to download Sublime Text or Atom.